


The Letter

by eveshka



Series: Tales of the Dawn King [56]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dawn King Cycle, Gen, Spoilers for the Dawn King Cycle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 08:26:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eveshka/pseuds/eveshka
Summary: He’d known.He’d planned.It took forty years.





	The Letter

The paper was old, yellowed with age and had been buried in the middle of a mess of documents that Ignis had collected during the Long Darkness. Talcott remembered how the man had arrived, harried and upset, thrust the boxes at him and then vanished into the night, his stalwart Kingsglaive companion at his side. At the time, Talcott had done what little he could to piece together the bulk of the data, but random bits of paper such as this had been put aside for later.

And now was that later, forty years after the sun had returned to the sky and the historians were begging for more, Talcott had finally agreed to share the papers. Gladiolus Amicitia and Stasios Teleon had both passed the year prior, surely there was no reason now to keep anything private. It didn't mean that Talcott wasn't going to go through every page before he handed them over.

Which had led him to this unassuming paper, folded in half and lost in the mess of history.

He'd unfolded it, seen the faded ink proclaiming it from the Leville in Lestallum, and glanced at the contents.

What he saw made him put the other documents to the side so he could focus on the words.

They were written in pencil, smeared and wandering across the page like lost garula, words written by a hand that had no eyes with which to guide it. 

It took Talcott several minutes to decipher the missive and when he did, he sat back in his chair with a soft exhale.

Did he share this?

Did he dare?

How could he not?

It spoke of the man who had written it almost forty-three years past.

It told so much in a spidery scrawl, the knowledge settling into Talcott's heart and making it ache.

No, he couldn't share this.

He _had_ to.

 

Properly preserved and mounted in the display case, the latest addition to the Hall of the Dawnbringers in the New Insomnia Museum was by far the most revered item to date. People stopped to read it and the translation with notes that Talcott himself had added, and left with tears in thier eyes. Some touched the glass reverently. Others prayed. All were moved. After all, no-one had known, save the man who’d written it.

\--

** The Leville, Lestallum **

 

_Voice cannot carry these words._

_Indeed, these words, this knowledge carries such weight as to have drowned a man's soul in the waters of Altissia._

_The Ring bears heavier still the price of knowledge, this I have learned._

_It was that which gave me Vision and yet took it from me in turn._

_To bring the Dawn, the Night must die, and we walk Noctis to his death._

_And as he falls, so shall I, Altissia rising from ruin to claim what is Hers._

_Do not grieve; to give my life for his was my highest calling._

_Ignis Scientia_

 

\--

Notes:

It was long wondered how Scientia lost his sight and why he fell untouched at the Battle of Dawn. With this letter, we can determine that:

  * Scientia at some point during the Fall of Altissia interacted with the Ring of the Lucii and while it gave him a vision, the magic took his sight as the price.
  * It is likely that the magic of the Lucii kept Scientia alive after the events in Altissia and when magic was dispelled from the world to restore the Dawn, Scientia's death caught up with him.
  * Scientia exhibits no regrets, and indeed seems to have come to terms with and be at ease with his own incipient mortality, begging the intended reader not to mourn his passing. 



One can only wonder to whom this letter was intended to reach, though it was likely directed to Prompto Argentum, as both men were close friends as recorded in the letters previously published and on display here in the museum.

 

Talcott Hester, AfterDawn 40/M.E. 806

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing something else, I swear.  
> Demishock is my alibi.


End file.
